There’s going to be a big party in District 2 on Saturday, Jun. 15. It’s going to be held on an island and there will be at least one industrial-strength foam machine. There will also be over 30 DJs playing music on two different stages from the early afternoon until late at night. The organisers, who are heavy-hitting veterans of the Saigon event promotion scene and know about these things, expect attendance to number in the thousands. Five to be precise. All signs point to the dOSe of Escape Music Festival being one of the biggest, craziest parties in the history of the city. The funny thing is, it would have never happened if it weren’t for complaining neighbours.

After the overly public departure of MGM from Vietnam, what is in store for Ho Tram Strip, the massive coastal development 45 minutes north of Vung Tau? Nick Ross visits the resort formerly known as the MGM Grand and discovers a taste of Las Vegas on the coastline of Vietnam

My taste in interior decoration is not what would typically be called ‘elegant’. My room is decorated with pictures cut out of old magazines and my curtain is a re-purposed beach towel. A single plastic flower, forlorn and dusty, is the sole object of art in my house. This approach to ornamentation is largely due to sloth, of course, but also because classiness comes at a price I am normally unwilling to pay.

For many young adults, the phrase “Saturday night clubbing” evokes overindulgence and questionable decision-making. For a group of 150 young Vietnamese musicians, however, Saturday night means hanging out at a more productive kind of club.

The first time I met Erina — aka Yokusou Gyo (“bathtub fish”) aka Sakana-chan (“fish girl”) — she was dreamily twirling through spotlights at a body art exhibition at Saigon Outcast, with white paint and almost nothing else on, an ethereal, dream-like performance set to jazz vocals. Later on, she dressed in a schoolgirl costume and ran around from one person to another asking, “Do you have Facebook?” I did.

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A hippie town in Arizona with land selling for seven-figure sums, Sedona is an-end-of-a-journey kind of place whose residents have unusual yarns to tell. Karen Hewell takes a tour by jeep and learns all about her guide

It’s five in the afternoon and the streets are packed with vehicles — heading here, there and everywhere. Ed Weinberg stops at a gas station for a fill-up, and to find out exactly where everyone is going. Francis Xavier photos and translation